Luxury brands, oil producers, more and more companies are buying CO2 offset certificates. The latter allow them to display a reduction in their carbon emissions, or even to claim their neutrality, all this without necessarily changing the way of production, but simply by investing in climate projects.
In Switzerland, the Compensation secretariat believes that participation in these projects should make it possible to reduce 3,000,000 tonnes of CO2 in 2023.
But these compensation certificates would sometimes be greatly overvalued.
>> Learn more about the carbon offset mechanism:
A business model
Founded in 2006, in Zurich, the world leader in the sale of these certificates, “South Pole”, is today in full expansion. “In total, we have developed nearly a thousand projects in more than 50 countries”, explains its director Renat Heuberger.
The protection of 700,000 hectares of the Kariba forest in Zimbabwe is one of the Swiss company’s flagship projects. However, several German and British newspapers estimate that this project offsets only 20 million tons of CO2, twice less than what was promised when it was launched in 2011.
According to the boss of “South Pole”, the survey would be inaccurate, even if he recognizes certain imperfections: “Last July, we noticed that according to our model, too many compensation certificates were issued, so we suspended their sale in large quantities.” Since then, the company’s control system has been reviewed.
A protection that misses its target
According to the NGO Greenpeace, these compensation certificates are problematic. Several studies demonstrate the lack of respect for the protection of these forests. “It happens that a forest is first razed, then the money is sent to replant trees there”, denounces Georg Klingler, climate expert of Greenpeace.
Several companies are beginning to question these certificates and decide to fight themselves to reduce CO2 emissions. In 2022, the airline EasyJet was still touting its climate-neutral flights. This year, change of strategy, “we no longer describe our flights as carbon neutral”, confirms the company in writing to RTS. The low-cost company claims to now bet on its own CO2 reductions.
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